CUSHING, a Novel

By marylou miner

There was a time when the community of Cushing, Quebec was considered the vibrant "Heart of the Empire", at least by James and Annabelle Wallace, who settled there in the late 19th century. After their four beautiful daughters arrived to complete their family unit, the world was a perfect place, especially that part of the world called Cushing. This narrative, while based on actual events, is presented as a fictionalized account of the lives of the four Wallace sisters, interwoven with that of their parents, their families, and the town of Cushing itself. The backdrop for this novel, set between 1850 and 1934, is a huge tapestry of momentous events in Canadian history: the early commercial and social development of Montreal; the initial New York Bankers' chaos around 1907, ultimately widening its impact to become the great depression; The Great War of 1914-1919; and the Halifax Explosion, to name a few. Some of these events played a significant role in the lives of its population. For others, the forces of history twirled around them and beyond them playing only minor roles in the more immediate triumphs and tragedies of their own lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: marylou miner
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465975645

marylou miner

Reading and writing have been my twin passions since I was a young girl growing up in Southern Ontario.During my early adult years I lived in Northern Ontario,raising a family and teaching English literature. Now I have returned to my roots, geographically and emotionally, where I am embarking on my third career as a professional writer. I hope you will return to read more of my books. As the poet writes and the singer sings, "the best is yet to come." Currently pending are: Reflections After Sixty: A Collection of Essays Quyon, A Novel (a sequel to Cushing) Theories of the Imagination: The Imaginative Intersections of Wallace Stevens, Northrop Frye, and Italo Calvino

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing new under the sun, said the prophets. So how can a story about ordinary people living in the nineteenth and twentieth century have anything new to say? Words can only confirm what is already known and has already been written. Love is fleeting; love is eternal; life is lonely; life is a communion of social lives; childhood is innocence; childhood is hell. The poets have told us so.

Men and women need each other in ways neither understands. These eternal truths repeat themselves in stories of self-renewal and self-creation. The poets also teach us that with each line of poetry, it is myself that I create. Perhaps it is through this act of creating and creation that we can indirectly approach the center of our existence. Like Plato’s cave images, our stories, and the characters within them, are inevitably confined to the shadows of metaphor. We kill time; we fall in love; we break a heart; we mend a friendship. All through time, and in every culture, the elders and, in particular, the women, have told the gossip, the fables, the recollected histories which have been passed down from generation to generation. Ultimately, they become our own stories, and gain entrance into everything we write and think as we continue our personal journeys. These stories also enter into the collective unconscious of the human predicament through their telling and retelling, as part of our ancestral heritage. If we live with stories long enough, the timelines and points of view overlap and become indistinguishable from our own. Fictions are the blessed creations of what might have been, could have been, should have been, and sometimes, were.

There was a time when the community of Cushing, Quebec was considered the vibrant Heart of the Empire, at least by James and Annabelle Wallace, who settled there in the late nineteenth century. After their four beautiful daughters arrived to complete their family unit, the world was a perfect place, especially that part of the world called Cushing.

This narrative is presented as a fictionalized account of the life of the Wallace family and, in particular, the youngest daughter, Ellen, interwoven with the town of Cushing itself. To retell these stories as a true accounting of events would most likely be considered a fabrication. Hence the designation of Novel.

The backdrop for this novel, set between 1850 and 1934, is a huge historical tapestry of momentous events: the early commercial and social development of Montreal; the initial New York Bankers Crisis around 1907, ultimately widening its impact on the world economies, to become the great depression; The Great War of 1914-1919; and the Halifax Explosion, to name a few. Some of these events played a significant role in the lives of its population. For others, the forces of history twirled around them and beyond them playing only minor roles in the more immediate dramas of their own lives.

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A man's virtue is his monument, but forgotten is the man of evil repute...

(Egyptian Tombstone Inscription c.2200 B.C.)

PROLOGUE

Cushing, Quebec

1933

Not a good night for someone to die; might not be found for months, Denis thought, as he staggered out of his old pickup truck, and plodded his way through snow drifts along the short path to his front door. The new January snow had accumulated around the perimeter of his spare wooden house, as if it had acted like a magnet for the snow to envelope. He hadn’t bothered to leave the lights on or even lock the door. There wasn’t much of value in this home. Other than Ellen and the children, there never had been.

He didn’t much like how he was feeling, but then, it wasn’t so different from any other night of the week. Except that, the food had been a bit better than his usual fare. My, but that Emily could cook up a storm: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, all the trimmings, slathered in gravy. The gravy was so good he had even licked his plate. He especially liked the look on Emily’s face as he did so. Hadn’t she just always been so prim and proper? Wasn’t Marie the generous one keeping his glass filled with James’ homemade wine? Had they laced it with hooch perhaps? It sure packed a whollop.

He had wondered why there had been all the hullabaloo about inviting him over so soon after Christmas and all, even changing the date of the dinner when he said he couldn’t make it the other night? A man needs companionship now and again. When he finds it in town and gets to bring it home for the night, who needs the fuss of family gatherings. This gathering, however, had not been half bad, with Marie giving him a big hug and all upon his arrival.

We mustn’t leave it so long between visits, Denis. You know that even without Ellen you are still part of our family. Your children are missing you and they are all so precious to us.

Precious indeed, since they hardly ever came calling. Mind you, what did he care, since Marie and Emily were taking care of them; sure took a load off his mind and wallet. Besides, a man his age shouldn’t be tied down with kids anyway.

Better not to tempt fate by trying to maneuver around the house. What if he were to fall and hit his head, like he did last summer, slashing his forehead open such as to require ten stitches? Sure was lucky that Jane had been dropping by that day to bring him a load of fresh corn from her farm.

Might as well take advantage of the sweet dizziness and climb into bed for a long winter’s sleep. Won't even stir the coals; I’ll just gather the down comforter around me weary body and wait until morning to set a new fire.

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PART ONE

… a poem, a stink, a grating noise,

a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream…(John Steinbeck)

Chapter One

The Town of Cushing

Nineteenth Century Beginnings

Just as there are comfort foods, so too, there are comfort places. Cushing was such a place. But more than a place, it was, like other places we call home, a sound, a feeling, all the senses rolled up into a single word. The very name conjured up a sense of cushioning, caring, a mother’s touch, a lover’s caress.

As was the popular tradition in the nineteenth century for designating early Canadian communities, Cushing took its name from a prominent local family, the Cushings, who had settled in this area of Quebec as wealthy Irish merchants. It was a small community, near the town of Lachute and the city of Montreal, primarily settled by immigrants from Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland. Many families would endure weeks of cold and hunger on schooners bringing them to the port of Montreal, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Montreal was still a walled city.

Those families who arrived in Cushing during the early half of the nineteenth century received the choice sites, long and narrow, near the river. The settlers who arrived after 1850 had to build further back, thus enhancing the density and complexity of the town. Many of the laboring class were millwrights or loggers, who had come to gain employment in the burgeoning lumber industry along the Ontario and Quebec borders of the mighty Ottawa, a cold, black, unpredictable, sometimes unforgiving, water mass running parallel, so it seemed, to its inhabitant’s lives.

Large tracts of land allowed the settlers to sustain themselves by farming, as well as working a trade. Sometimes several generations of families, such as the Wallace family, would build homes close to each other, sharing wells and grazing land for the requisite family cow, and providing access to the river itself.

Once a week, a family member would trek the short distance to the general store, to replenish the flour and baking supplies, and to pick up any mail or gossip that might be awaiting them.

Now, how are all your fine, wee lassies today, Mrs. Wallace? chirps the store master's wife, Edith O’Connor.

And will ya' be wanting some extra sugar with your order this week? I know how Mr. Wallace loves them sweet buns that you make of a weekday. And so do we all, when you are kind enough to trot them over to St. Matthew's for the Sunday socials after the noon service. Says, Mr. O'Connor.

We just got a lovely shipment of blue and yellow muslin cotton from Montreal. Sure and it would make a lovely set of aprons for you and the girls.

Only if you’ll come over for a visit and help me make them. Annabelle responds in jest.

Such was the commerce and camaraderie of Cushing, that even the tasks of replenishing stock for the larder became a social outing.

Not so light and sociable was the task of education. It was a serious matter indeed, with no time to spare for play or frivolity. The one-room Stone School House was open six days a week. Many children did not make it every day. Chores would take precedence over studies. Usually there were six or eight eager eyes, of varying ages, all seeking approval from the current schoolmarm, usually of the spinster variety. The children would take turns reciting sums or reading from the tattered books that had been donated by the Montreal lending library. The tedium of the classroom, sometimes made chores a welcomed alternative.

Once a month, Reverend Fraser, the minister of St. Matthew's, would take the train into Montreal and come back with more donations. One year he even secured ten individual writing tablets for the children. Paper was scarce, so notebooks had to be doled out with great economy and were reserved for those times when a student had mastered cursive penmanship, such that the writing was worthy of being preserved.

Most children had to leave school at the age of twelve or thirteen to begin an apprenticeship, or to find work on a neighbouring farm. The real education for children of immigrants began when they left school. Life itself was a demanding and unrelenting schoolmaster. School was a privilege and a luxury for children of that time and place, even though they did not always appreciate it. Annabelle Desjardins Webster had been one of the fortunate few to gain an education against all odds.

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She walks in beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies/And all that's best of dark and bright/Meets in her aspect and her eyes...(Lord Byron)

Chapter Two

Annabelle Desjardins Webster

The Years: 1824-1865

Annabelle Desjardins Webster was the beautiful, only daughter of Samuel Webster and Amelia Desjardins. She emerged from her mother’s womb, composed and serene. The year was 1855. While she complied with the thump from the midwife, and let out the reassuring scream of a newborn filling her lungs, thereafter, and indeed until her death at ninety-four, she was a source of amazement and comfort to all her knew her.

Amelia never quite regained her full strength after the birth of Annabelle. Just as well that mother and daughter could lie quietly together in summer on the front porch. In winter, they would sit by the fire in the front room of the little log home